Repaint suddenly stops drawing

[totalspelnerd]

Problem: I have a game loop running in my project and sometimes it just stops rendering.

Code:

while (running) {
	if (timerfps.hasTimeGone()) {
		repaint();
		System.out.println("Rendering");
	}
	System.out.println("Running");
}

Everything works fine, but after some time my Overrided paintComponent method just stops being called. "Rendering" and "Running" keep printing out in the console but nothing in the paintComponent method is getting printed or drawn.

the timerfps is my own timers set to 60 ticks / seconds.


Is there a reason why it just stops calling the method?

[Norm]

If the timerfps.hasTimeGone() method stops returning true, the repaint() method won't be called. If "Rendering" is printed, then the repaint() method would have been called.
Do you have a println() call in the paintComponent() method that is called unconditionally? Does it stop printing?

Can you make a small, complete program that compiles, executes and shows the problem?

[totalspelnerd]

It keeps printing "Rendering" every 60 / second -> timerfps.hasTimerGone() returns true every 60 / second.

I have a println() in the paintComponent method that stops printing after a while (when the drawing to the panel stops).

The problem with creating a SSCCE is that it has never happened before and seems to be totally random. So I can't really create one.

[Norm]

Sorry, I have no suggestions. Non-repeatable bugs are really hard to find and fix.

[jim829]

How large is your application? Can you show the paintComponent method? Are you catching any exceptions but not printing them?

Regards,
Jim

[totalspelnerd]

The project is rather large. I've been working on it for like a month now. Coding maybe 3-6 hours a day.

public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
	System.out.println("PaintComponent is drawing");
	fps++;
	super.paintComponent(g);
	render();
	imgh.draw(g);
	imgh.resetImages();
}

the render() method goes through everything that should be drawn and adds them to a image array (Just to make me able to draw on different layers). and the imgh.draw(g) just draws all the images to Graphics g. and the imgh.resetImages() removes all the images from the array.

I'm not catching any errors in the render methods or getting any of that sort.

[jim829]

Are you certain that your program is not doing something differently later on that might not be changing the way you expect. Also, why are you automatically rendering every 60th of a second instead of when something needs to really be repainted?

Regards,
Jim

[totalspelnerd]

Now that I've looked into my code, I do have a while loop that might the the problem.

while(useLayer);

This is to make sure that the layer array isn't in use right now. But I do reset it to false every time I'm done using it (double checked). But could it be that it still doesn't go out of the loop even though it is set to false?

[totalspelnerd]

why are you automatically rendering every 60th of a second instead of when something needs to really be repainted?

Because I'm making a game and it needs to render 60/second otherwise it's really hard to keep track if something on screen is moving or not.

[jim829]

If you are using multiple threads, it could be a problem. Is useLayer marked as volatile (still may not solve the problem)? Some compilers will change some
code like this:

while (useLayer);

to this

if (useLayer) {
    while(true);
}

as an optimization technique. To ensure this doesn't happen in a multi-threaded environment, you need to make it volatile or have it part of a synchronization
block (the details of which cannot be explained here).

Regards,
Jim

[totalspelnerd]

No, it's not volatile or any of that sort, but changing it to that seemed to fix it or at least made it less frequent. Can't say for sure yet but hopefully it worked.

Thanks a lot!

[Norm]

How does the app handle all the printlns? If "Rendering", "Running" and"PaintComponent is drawing" are being printed 60 times a second that creates a lot of output.

[jim829]

You're welcome! I hope it works. BTW, you should refrain from using tight loops to enter wait states. It would be better to to use a sleep within a loop. Or if possible, use the wait/notify capability of the Java thread architecture. That's what it's there for. You might want to investigate the java.util.concurrent package to see if anything there can support your application.

Regards,
Jim

[totalspelnerd]

How does the app handle all the printlns? If "Rendering", "Running" and"PaintComponent is drawing" are being printed 60 times a second that creates a lot of output.

That was for debugging. I don't have that showing all the time.

[Norm]

Yes, I understood that. What I was wondering about is what happens to all the lines that are printed when you are debugging. Does your console hold all the lines so you can look back through all of them to see when anything could have changed when the code was executing?

[totalspelnerd]

sorry for the delay, I'm was just using eclipses console to print out the debugging stuff. I think it can only contain like 1000 lines (not sure at all how many). Then I can look through them when/if I close the program.